When thus your gathered crowns I see, Yet breathe once more upon my sense; Ah, take my kiss your leaves among! Ye fill me with a bliss intense, Ye stir my soul to humblest song. Sweet blossoms! to my present hour; In every fairy cup and ring In I find a spell of memory's power. every odorous breath I feel And there were friends with loving eyes, Therefore my gentlest thanks I sing To her who sent these tender flowers; They to my present, solace bring, -KNICKERBOCKER. THE ROBIN REDBREASTS' CHORUS. [There is an old English belief, that when a sick person is about to depart, a chorus of Robin Redbreasts raise their plaintive songs near the house of death.] THE summer sweets had passed away, with many a heart-throb sore, For warning voices said that she would ne'er see sum mer more; But still I hoped-'gainst hope itself. and at the autumn tide, With joy I marked returning strength, while watching by her side. But dreary winter and his blasts came with redoubled gloom, With trembling hands the Christmas boughs I hung around the room; For gone the warmth of autumn days-her life was on the wane: Those Christmas boughs at Candlemas I took not down again! * * Evergreens hung about on Christmas eve ought to be taken down on the 2d February-Candlemas-day-according to old usage. One day a Robin Redbreast came unto the casement near, She loved its soft and plaintive note which few unmoved can hear; But on each sad successive day this Redbreast ceased not bringing Other Robins, till a chorus full and rich was singing. Then, then I knew that death was nigh, and slowly stalking on; I gazed with speechless agony on our beloved one; No tearful eye, no fluttering mien, such sorrow durst betray We tried to soothe each parting pang of nature's last decay. The blessed Sabbath morning came, the last she ever saw; And I had read of Jesus' love, of God's eternal law, Amid the distant silver chime of Sunday bells sweet ringing Amid a chorus rich and full of Robin Redbreasts singing! The grass waves high, the fields are green, which skirt the churchyard side, Where charnel vaults with massive walls their slumbering inmates hide; The ancient trees cast shadows broad, the sparkling waters leap, And still the Redbreast sings around her long and dreamless sleep! -C. A. M. W. LINES WRITTEN IN MEMORY OF A FAVOURITE BIRD. I TAUGHT my gay and beauteous bird some words of love to prize, And fancied meaning beamed within his dark and lustrous eyes: I taught him fond and winning ways he never knew before Ah! how the sweet one fluttering gained his rare and dainty lore. That bird was strangely dear to me; and when I mused alone, His thrilling cadence seemed to mourn some loved and absent one; But at the holy sunset hour he nestled in my breast, And understood of all sweet birds I loved my own the best! In solitude and loneliness the human heart must cling And rest on something-though it be a dumb and soulless thing. When summer roses fade away, 'tis sad to see them die, But far more sad it was to hear my gentle bird's last sigh. And all beneath a white rose-tree I laid his little head. The tree he loved to nestle on now shades his grassy bed; And when at eve these buds are gemmed with dewdrops soft and cool, Amid them falls a tear for thee, my bright, my beautiful! -C. A. M. W. ANGELS IN THE AIR. [Suggested by the remark of a little girl, who, observing large snow-flakes falling, exclaimed to her sister: "O don't hurt them, Mary; there's angels in them!"] DARK, darker grew the leaden sky, The wind was moaning low, And, shrouding all the herbless ground, Wending from heaven its weary way |